Only a national effort can work
IT’S BECOMING harder and harder to be witty or satirical about Jamaica’s violent crime. These days, as I sit before my magic rectangle staring at its blank facsimile of a page, I try to channel any of Jamaica’s satirists including legends like Mass Ran, Miss Lou, Pro-Rata Powell [a (Domi)No Prize if you know his real name] or icons like Blacka, Ity, Fancy Cat. But, as happened to the boy who cried “wolf” too often, nothing comes. Haemorrhoid’s long and winding Shaggy Dog Stories ending in hilarious anti-climax seem undignified in Jamaica’s criminal climate change. Oma D’unn’s pithy political advice from his Apocryphan Consultancy (in a fantasyland where all politicians are friends) seems inappropriate.
I’m particularly at a loss for words today because, 24 hours after the news of the Mafia-style execution of Paralegal Sandra Risden came to me, I understand better how emotion can get in the way of rational assessment. To be fair to me I’ve always admitted that, if a member of my family was murdered or, worse, raped, I’d use any means necessary to eliminate any possibility of repetition.
But that’s a personal thing. Since we can’t eliminate murderers by eliminating individual murderers, we should stop funneling misdirected anger towards that particular waste of time. Even should we succeed in eliminating individual murderers we would create multiple more from among the murderer’s family, friends or associates seeking reprisal. Violence begets violence. Every time!
So we are allowed to think it when it gets too close to home but we’d be foolish to do it whether individually or collectively through State action.
Sandra Risden joined the firm of Nunes, Scholefield (pronounced “Skofield”; a permissible variation would be “Skoll-field”; any similarity to a recently promoted EPL football team isn’t allowed) DeLeon and Co (NSD) 35 years ago. As a founding partner of that most recent iteration of a 95 year-old succession of partnerships, I remember well her entry into the firm. I had the pleasure of watching and helping her grow from scratch.
She came as a junior secretary but worked with legal icons like the current Court of Appeal President, Patrick Brooks, and insurance law Jeffrey Mordecai from whom she learned far more than typing and scheduling. She always stood out as one who wasn’t content to be static but anxious to progress in knowledge and experience. By the time I retired (end 1997), despite her settling in Conveyancing, she was already a popular go-to resource for all lawyers, junior and senior alike, especially for precedents.
Sandra Risden eventually rose to become a paralegal due to her outstanding intellect, work ethic and commitment to NSD. She was a rock to many there. When I think of the tragic, senseless loss of knowledge and experience......
I can only imagine the hurt for friends and family. I can testify that the loss to the legal profession is immeasurable.
Long before this sordid spectacle of a citizen being gunned down in daytime traffic by motorcycle hoodlums, it’s been obvious that governments’ crime policies have as many teeth as a bumble bee. To be clear, I refer to the policies of several successive governments. Unfortunately for this government it’s the one that volunteered for and “won” the hot seat. If it can’t reduce the temperature it must leave the chair.
How to turn the heat down? Nonsensical arguments dissecting annual amounts of murders and calculating percentage increases/ decreases are a snake-oil salesman’s strategy. Reality? From 2014, when Jamaica recorded 1,005 murders, to December 31, 2023, 13,546 Jamaicans were murdered. The murder rate per 100,000 citizens was 36.4 (2014); 52 (2023).
Why is ANY POLITICAL PARTY patting itself on the back? WHY? In 2023, Jamaica recorded 118 fewer murders (1323) than 2022 (1498). Government says it “saved” 118 lives. Utter, complete, disgraceful, insane RUBBISH! In 2023, 1,323 MORE lives were lost.
It’s beyond time to stop this irrational, counter-productive political one-upmanship. Ignoring, for the moment, their questionable constitutionality, the rolling 14 day SOEs’ toothpaste tube effect ensures the problem may relocate but certainly continues. National Security must be a national effort. Government must admit that the first-past-the-post-rules attitude to crime has failed for sixty years; cast aside any vestige of colonially implanted mindset; and invite the Opposition to help develop a national crime policy.The Opposition must shed every vestige of colonially implanted obstructionist tradition practised by oppositions since Independence and be open to argument and compromise.
There’s no other effective way forward.
Peace and Love.